So remember that post back at the beginning of the year, where I said that I wasn't going to lose my groove and was going to be sure to keep trying new and exciting recipes? Yeah. I think I did too much cooking and baking in the first 8 weeks of this year. These past couple weeks without a plethora of guests (only one or two at a time) has meant that I've tried just about NOTHING. Nothing but ice cream, that is. And really, ice cream is the good stuff - the center of the food universe you might say, at least my food universe. Last night was the worse, because I even messed up the ice cream. (In my defense, I think it was a very old can of coconut milk that messed it up...)
Losing my groove could also be due to the heat. There's nothing worse than heating the entire house along with the oven for several hours while you experiment with new recipes. We even strategize to determine the least required amount of time to turn on a single burner... it's that hot!
I'm soooo over summer. Ready for some cooler weather, and with it, a resurgence of trying new recipes. :) Bring on winter, I say!
(Also, I need to find some good recipe blogs in the same hemisphere I'm in. All the amazing recipe blogs that I read are just coming out of winter, and while spring recipes may appeal to me, warm, comforting winter recipes do not. It's an interesting dilemma. Maybe I need to browse through their archives from July and August. :)
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A Quiet Night
It’s not quite 11 PM and I’m here typing away on my laptop. Why? Well, quite simply because I’m hoping that by sheer force and determination, the internet signal will come back. Probably not going to happen, but a girl can hope, right?
It’s a quiet night in Francistown. But wait… is it really that quiet?
There’s a particularly obnoxious cricket right outside my window (and I mean right outside) and he is backed up by a whole chorus of his friends. It’s not his friends that I mind, it is his closeness. I need a little bit of personal space.
My fan clacks above my head. When it starts to sound like it is going to clack right off the ceiling, I stand up and grasp the tip, gently swivel the whole unit, and center it again. This helps… sometimes for a couple hours, sometimes for a few minutes. Once I’m sound asleep, it doesn’t bother me… it’s just in the half-asleep state that it sometimes interrupts my stillness.
Outside my window, all the dogs of the neighborhood, who were just a moment ago pleasantly snoozing, are now howling and baying and snapping – no doubt giving their opinion to someone who is walking by. And right outside my bedroom door, I hear a snoring Rottweiler, who is choosing to ignore all her buddies and sleep peacefully on. I’m so thankful that she isn’t a barker – only when it’s someone actually at our gate. Let’s hope she doesn’t pick up any bad habits from the neighborhood.
Then there is the dripping from the hot water heater (or geezer). It tends to overheat, overflow, explode, whatever you want to call it from time to time. This can be a problem since it is right by my window and if my window happens to be open (like last time) I end up mopping my floor on a day when I wasn’t planning on doing so. But when it is happy, it just pleasantly drips from time to time, so that’s a nice sound.
These are the sounds all around me on this 'quiet' night in Francistown.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Ice Cream Recipes
With the arrival of our ice cream maker in the container, we've been making lots of the creamy goodness. It's a wonderful way to cool off and a nice treat instead of baked goods which involve an oven. We can buy ice cream here, but it is not the same as what we are used to in the states. A quick look at the list of ingredients shows you why - instead of using full cream milk, they use vegetable fat. It's similar in consistency, but the taste (and aftertaste, ick) are much different. Making our own means that we can use real cream and real milk... much better for you, I'm sure, and more what we are used to. In the long run, it's a lot cheaper to make our own, and there are so many more options for flavors and mix-ins!
Do you have an ice cream maker? Our is like this one here, and filling both bowls yields us two quarts of ice cream. Here are some of our favorite recipes and combinations.
Basic Vanilla Ice Cream
1 16-oz can of coconut milk
2 cups cream
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with milk.
Basic Chocolate Ice Cream
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 T cocoa powder (or more... I just dump it in until it looks dark enough :)
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with milk.
Banana Bread Ice Cream
3 mashed bananas
2 cups cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
1 T custard powder (you could leave this out if you can't find it)
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with milk.
(This easily turns into 'Chunky Monkey', as we like to call it, by omitting the cinnamon, adding chocolate chunks and nuts.)
Mango Frozen Yogurt
2 mangoes, peeled and mashed
1/2 cup orange juice
4-5 T honey (or more to taste)
2 cups plain yogurt (if you can find greek or bulgarian, that's even better)
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with plain yogurt.
Orange-Banana Sorbet
5 or 6 juiced oranges, with pulp
2 mashed bananas
2-3 T honey
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups plain yogurt
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with plain yogurt.
The options are limitless, of course. We like to throw in extras of whatever we have on hand - nuts plain or toasted, chocolate chunks, crushed candy bars, crushed cookies or brownies, mini frozen cookie dough balls, swirls of caramel or fudge, ground vanilla bean, crushed coconut, etc.
Vanilla with Chocolate Chunks
Do you have an ice cream maker? Our is like this one here, and filling both bowls yields us two quarts of ice cream. Here are some of our favorite recipes and combinations.
Basic Vanilla Ice Cream
1 16-oz can of coconut milk
2 cups cream
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with milk.
Basic Chocolate Ice Cream
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 T cocoa powder (or more... I just dump it in until it looks dark enough :)
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with milk.
Banana Bread Ice Cream
3 mashed bananas
2 cups cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
1 T custard powder (you could leave this out if you can't find it)
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with milk.
(This easily turns into 'Chunky Monkey', as we like to call it, by omitting the cinnamon, adding chocolate chunks and nuts.)
Mango Frozen Yogurt
2 mangoes, peeled and mashed
1/2 cup orange juice
4-5 T honey (or more to taste)
2 cups plain yogurt (if you can find greek or bulgarian, that's even better)
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with plain yogurt.
Mango Frozen Yogurt
5 or 6 juiced oranges, with pulp
2 mashed bananas
2-3 T honey
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups plain yogurt
Pour into bowls, then fill to the top of the beaters with plain yogurt.
The options are limitless, of course. We like to throw in extras of whatever we have on hand - nuts plain or toasted, chocolate chunks, crushed candy bars, crushed cookies or brownies, mini frozen cookie dough balls, swirls of caramel or fudge, ground vanilla bean, crushed coconut, etc.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Behold, I show you a mystery
Bhut Jolokia peppers are the third hottest peppers in the world. Up until December of last year, it was confirmed as the hottest pepper in the world, but two new hybrids have since come along. Still, it's pretty hot. ;)
My brother Sam has guarded his Bhut Jolokia pepper seeds and painstakingly planted some when we got here. Out of the four he planted, only one lasted long enough to be transplanted into a larger pot. That one pepper plant has had a hard life, seeing as it has to live in a certain dog's territory - a certain dog who thinks it is her duty to eat every living thing in sight. But once the plant grew to a certain height, the dog seemed to leave it alone, and then it flourished.
By the time the pepper plant was about 30 inches high, it was covered in pretty little white flowers, the beginnings of the Bhut Jolokia pepper. Sam was so excited! If each of those flowers produced one pepper, he'd have enough heat to supply the entire city of Francistown. A little bit goes a long way when it comes to the Bhut Jolokia. Soon one little baby pepper was growing and all the other flowers looked promising.
Then we went to South Africa for one week and the poor little pepper plant suffered in the heat and very dry weather. When we returned, all the flowers had fallen off and half of the leaves were crispy brown. Sam trimmed, watered, and babied the plant until it perked back up. That one little baby pepper was still hanging on, now almost full size. All we had to do was wait for it to ripen. Even just one pepper would help him make a large batch of very hot sauce.
This morning, I saw the pepper basking in the sun. At lunch, Sam pulled aside the curtain in the hallway to check on his little Bhut Jolokia. It was gone! There was the stem, with the raw edge where the pepper had been freshly snapped off. He searched all around the plant, to no avail.
And therein lies the mystery. What happened to the Bhut Jolokia? We may never know.
The assumed culprit, of course, is the dog. But we don't think she ate it, because I'm sure we would have heard her pacing around for hours, whining at the burn in her mouth, drinking buckets of water. So that only leaves us to assume that she buried it, which is what she does with all contraband items she steals (car washing rags from the garage are her favorites). But her hiding places are many, and finding a buried bright red dishtowel is easier to unearth than a small, green pepper.
Who knows? Maybe one day we'll go outside and there will be another little Bhut Jolokia plant, growing in some unusual spot, planted by a Rottweiler.
My brother Sam has guarded his Bhut Jolokia pepper seeds and painstakingly planted some when we got here. Out of the four he planted, only one lasted long enough to be transplanted into a larger pot. That one pepper plant has had a hard life, seeing as it has to live in a certain dog's territory - a certain dog who thinks it is her duty to eat every living thing in sight. But once the plant grew to a certain height, the dog seemed to leave it alone, and then it flourished.
By the time the pepper plant was about 30 inches high, it was covered in pretty little white flowers, the beginnings of the Bhut Jolokia pepper. Sam was so excited! If each of those flowers produced one pepper, he'd have enough heat to supply the entire city of Francistown. A little bit goes a long way when it comes to the Bhut Jolokia. Soon one little baby pepper was growing and all the other flowers looked promising.
Then we went to South Africa for one week and the poor little pepper plant suffered in the heat and very dry weather. When we returned, all the flowers had fallen off and half of the leaves were crispy brown. Sam trimmed, watered, and babied the plant until it perked back up. That one little baby pepper was still hanging on, now almost full size. All we had to do was wait for it to ripen. Even just one pepper would help him make a large batch of very hot sauce.
This morning, I saw the pepper basking in the sun. At lunch, Sam pulled aside the curtain in the hallway to check on his little Bhut Jolokia. It was gone! There was the stem, with the raw edge where the pepper had been freshly snapped off. He searched all around the plant, to no avail.
And therein lies the mystery. What happened to the Bhut Jolokia? We may never know.
The assumed culprit, of course, is the dog. But we don't think she ate it, because I'm sure we would have heard her pacing around for hours, whining at the burn in her mouth, drinking buckets of water. So that only leaves us to assume that she buried it, which is what she does with all contraband items she steals (car washing rags from the garage are her favorites). But her hiding places are many, and finding a buried bright red dishtowel is easier to unearth than a small, green pepper.
Who knows? Maybe one day we'll go outside and there will be another little Bhut Jolokia plant, growing in some unusual spot, planted by a Rottweiler.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Six Months
Today marks six months to the day that we landed in South Africa. It's hard to believe that much time has already passed, and in other ways it feels like we have now been here for a much longer time.
We had some things to attend to in South Africa, so we made the trip seven hours southward to my brother's house for the week. The night before we were to leave, my dad came down with a horrible sickness. He decided to stick it out and make the trip anyway, and I'm so glad we did. By the time we got here and got him to a doctor he was much worse, and it was soon confirmed that he has malaria. We are fairly certain he contracted the malaria while in Zambia, although Francistown is considered a malarial area.
So he's been recovering this week, while we get service done on our vehicle and attend to some other things. Someone jokingly said there are two stages of malaria - being afraid you might die, and then hoping you would just die. From his testimony, that seems to hold true. :) Poor guy, he's feeling much better today although his appetite and energy levels are drastically small.
Today, I am missing home. Home in PA, that is. The kids watched a Sunday school video, recorded months ago, and I was the teacher, singing and drawing and teaching my class. It was strange watching myself in that familiar role, something I was so comfortable with, but something I may never do again. We were able to connect and watch the live video stream of our home church's morning service. It's been months since we had an internet connection strong enough to do that. And I found what I missed - beyond the fellowship and the friendship and the American-style expository preaching - was the music.
At the same time, I am reluctant to say that I am ready to go back to that home, because I am so happy and so content to be here. I know this is where God wants me for now, and in some ways it is hard to think of changes that will one day come. If there is one thing I don't like about my life, it is this - the constant heart-tearing and heart-splitting that happens. Never completely at home, always missing somewhere and someone.
We had some things to attend to in South Africa, so we made the trip seven hours southward to my brother's house for the week. The night before we were to leave, my dad came down with a horrible sickness. He decided to stick it out and make the trip anyway, and I'm so glad we did. By the time we got here and got him to a doctor he was much worse, and it was soon confirmed that he has malaria. We are fairly certain he contracted the malaria while in Zambia, although Francistown is considered a malarial area.
So he's been recovering this week, while we get service done on our vehicle and attend to some other things. Someone jokingly said there are two stages of malaria - being afraid you might die, and then hoping you would just die. From his testimony, that seems to hold true. :) Poor guy, he's feeling much better today although his appetite and energy levels are drastically small.
Today, I am missing home. Home in PA, that is. The kids watched a Sunday school video, recorded months ago, and I was the teacher, singing and drawing and teaching my class. It was strange watching myself in that familiar role, something I was so comfortable with, but something I may never do again. We were able to connect and watch the live video stream of our home church's morning service. It's been months since we had an internet connection strong enough to do that. And I found what I missed - beyond the fellowship and the friendship and the American-style expository preaching - was the music.
At the same time, I am reluctant to say that I am ready to go back to that home, because I am so happy and so content to be here. I know this is where God wants me for now, and in some ways it is hard to think of changes that will one day come. If there is one thing I don't like about my life, it is this - the constant heart-tearing and heart-splitting that happens. Never completely at home, always missing somewhere and someone.
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